The horror on my face must register, because Jaxon starts to glance over his shoulder. But the sword is already swinging. There’s no time for him to even see the threat, let alone react to it.

Terrified, I grab his arms and yank him toward me. But even as he falls forward, I know it’s not going to work. He’s still in the blade’s path. For a moment, just a moment, I flash back to how he looked last night when we were stretched out on his bed. He was leaning over me, resting on his elbow. Sleepy smile, eyes hazy with want.

His hair had fallen forward into his face, and I reached up to push it back so I could see his eyes…and, for the first time, as my hand grazed his scarred cheek, he didn’t flinch. His smile didn’t falter and he didn’t duck his head. He didn’t turn away. Instead, he stayed right there with me. In the moment.

Relaxed.

Happy.

Whole.

And that’s when it hits me. Jaxon was never meant to be the hero of my story…because I was always meant to be the hero of his.

So, in the end, I do the only thing I can do. I wrap myself around him and spin us around so that my back is to the sword. And then I close my eyes and wait for the blow I’ve always known would come.

   0

She Persisted

—Jaxon—

“When the fuck is she going to turn back, Foster?”

“I don’t kn—”

“Don’t tell me that again. Don’t fucking tell me you don’t know.” I turn on the librarian and the Biology of Ancient Creatures teacher who are sitting in front of the headmaster’s desk and demand, “Aren’t you supposed to be able to figure out what the hell is going on around here? What the fuck is the point of putting you people in charge of this school if none of you can answer a simple fucking question?”

“It’s not a simple question, Jaxon.” The headmaster pinches the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger.

“Sure, it is. One minute, Grace was in my arms, blocking Hudson’s attack.” My throat closes up at the thought of those frantic, frenzied moments. Of the way she tried to drag me away, and when that didn’t work, how she threw herself between—

I cut off the thought before it can derail me and this entire conversation with it. Because if I think about it now, if I think about what she did… The ground beneath my feet starts to tremble and damn it, just damn it. The only thing keeping me from leveling the whole fucking school is the knowledge that I might hurt Grace in the process.

I take a deep breath before continuing. “One minute, she was there. And now Grace… Grace is…” I can’t say it. I can’t fucking say that she’s gone, because if I say it out loud I can’t take it back.

If I say it out loud, then it’s true.

“She was there, Foster,” I repeat. “Warm, alive, Grace. She was right there. And then she was—” The ground rumbles yet again, and this time I don’t even try to control it.

Instead, I walk over to the corner, where what’s left of Grace—my Grace—is standing. “Why can’t she just turn back?” I demand for what feels like the millionth time. “Why can’t you make her turn back?”

“I know it’s hard for you, Jaxon.” Dr. Veracruz speaks for the first time. “It’s hard for us, too. But we haven’t seen one for a thousand years. It’s going to take time to figure out what went wrong.”

“You’ve had four days! Four days. And you can’t tell me anything more than that! How am I supposed to get to her if you can’t even tell me what’s wrong?”

“I think you’re going to have to accept that you can’t get to her,” Foster says, and for the first time I realize that he looks and sounds nearly as bad as I do. “I think we’re going to have to accept that she’s not going to come back until she wants to.”

“I don’t believe that,” I tell him, voice hoarse and hands clenched into fists in an effort not to lose it completely. “Grace wouldn’t leave me like this voluntarily. She wouldn’t leave me.”

“Everything I’ve read in the last four days says she should be able to turn back on her own,” Amka tells me. “Which means only two things are possible.”

“Don’t say it,” I warn her.

“Jaxon—”

“I mean it, Foster. Don’t fucking say it. Grace isn’t dead. She can’t be dead.”

Because there’s no way I can keep myself from breaking wide open if she is.

No way I can stop myself from razing this school to the fucking ground. And if Hudson somehow has her… If he’s hurting her…just the thought of what he’s capable of—and what she might be going through because of it—sends a bolt of terror skittering down my spine and twisting in my stomach. If he’s harmed her in any way, I’ll find him. And then I’ll set him on fire just to watch him burn.

“She’s not dead,” I tell them again as I stare into her beautiful face. Her eyes are closed just like they were in that last second in the hallway, but that doesn’t matter. I don’t need to see her eyes to know how she feels about me—it’s written all over her face. She loves me, almost as much as I love her.

“If she’s not dead—and I agree with you that she’s not,” Dr. Veracruz says, “then the only other option is she’s choosing not to come back.”

“You don’t know that. She could be trapped—”

“We do know that,” Amka reminds me firmly. “Gargoyles can’t get trapped in their stone forms. If they don’t change back to human, it’s because they don’t want to.”

“That’s not true. Hudson’s doing something to her. He’s—”

“Jaxon.” Foster’s voice slices through my denials. “Do you really think Grace would change back if she thought she was bringing a threat to Katmere?” The headmaster holds my gaze, eyes somehow both solemn and fierce at the same time as I will him not to say what he’s thinking—what we’re both thinking. “Or to you?”

Pain slices through me, destroying me. Eviscerating me where I stand. I can barely think, barely breathe, through the agony of knowing that he’s right. Of knowing that Grace might very well be suffering at this very moment—to save me.

I told her about Hudson, told her about my mother. She knows how much killing him nearly destroyed me. If coming back means bringing Hudson back with her, if it means making me kill my brother again, then there’s no way Grace would do it. No way she would let me face that.